Andrew Chafin Blows Save, D-backs Lose 2-1

Torey Lovullo says it's brutal loss.

The D-backs were within one strike of a 1-0 victory over the Mets tonight at Chase Field. With two outs and a 3-2 count Andrew Chafin threw a slider that Francisco Alvarez just barely got a piece of, fouling it off Carson Kelly's leg. The next pitch was a sinker on the outer edge of the plate but up just enough for Alvarez to get the barrel on the ball.  He lifted an opposite field line drive that just cleared the fence in right for a game tying homer. 

From there it seemed inevitable that the Mets would score the go ahead run too.  Brett Baty singled on a ground ball through the hole into right and then Mark Canha tripled on a fly ball to deep right center driving in the winning run.  The D-backs went down in order in the bottom of the 9th. It was another crushing defeat for a team trying to use a bullpen by committee approach this season. 

Chafin, Scott McGough, and Miguel Castro have combined for 22 saves and six 9th inning blown saves. (They have eight blown saves in total but two came before the 9th inning).  After the game Torey Lovullo tried to put it in perspective. 

"There's a lot of relievers giving up runs late, games are flipped in the 8th or 9th inning. I'd love if we had a lockdown Mariano Rivera type of guy in the bullpen, but we don't ... we've got to find a way to mix and match it, and we'll continue to do that."

Tommy Henry had pitched six scoreless innings, giving up just two hits.  It was the fourth straight strong outing from the young left hander. He walked four, but one was intentional, and only got two strikeouts. The walk total is a little deceiving as he had good fastball command and threw first pitch strikes to 10 of the first 12 Mets batters, and 15 of 23 overall. The only time he was in trouble all night was in the fourth when he had runners on 2nd and 3rd with two outs, but got a ground out to second to end that threat.

Henry didn't feel like he had his best stuff today. The curveball wasn't as sharp as he'd like it to be. But he feels like he's learning how to get outs with less than his best stuff. Henry was stoic and philosophical as well in dealing with the tough loss.  "It's kind of the beauty and the curse of baseball. You can't dribble out the clock in baseball. Sometimes that's just the way the cookie crumbles. We'd do ourselves a disjustice if we hang our heads on this" 

 The D-backs had been held in check by Kodai Senga for the first six innings as well. The Japanese hurler was dominating, mixing his fastball with cutters of all shapes and speeds, allowing just three soft singles and a walk through the sixth. In the bottom of the 7th Christian Walker got a cutter he could handle and launched it 434 feet into the left field bleachers for a 1-0 lead.  

Walker regains the team lead in home runs. pic.twitter.com/hdF7OopwSD

— Michael McDermott (@MichaelMcD8393) July 6, 2023

Senga completed the 8th inning, giving up just four hits including the homer, walked one and struck out 12 batters. Walker was most impressed by Senga's ability to change shapes and speeds of his pitches. "I know he throws four or five different pitches, but I saw all cutters from him tonight. But some were 88, some were 94, some less depth, some sharper, more of like a pulled fastball. He threw me one that went straight down, he threw me some side to sides, but they were all cutters."   

Scoreless relief from Kyle Nelson and Scott McGough kept it that way until the 9th when Chafin came in. With the loss the D-backs fall to 50-37 and have lost three in a row, and five of their last seven.  The Dodgers won tonight, shaving the D-backs division lead down to 1.5 games. 

The series finale is tomorrow night at 6:40 P.M. MST Ryne Nelson will start against Carlos Carrasco and try to help the D-back avoid the sweep at home.